Appendix
To the German People
and the Civilized World*
[* To the German People and the Civilized
World. This appeal was counter-signed by a number of personages from
Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Probably the only one immediately
recognizable in the English-speaking world of today is Hermann Hesse. It
was printed and distributed by committees in these and other European
countries.]
The German people believed that its
imperial structure, erected half a century ago, would last for an unlimited
time. In August 1914, they felt that the imminent catastrophe of war would
prove this structure invincible. Today only its ruins are left. After such
an experience retrospection is in order, for this experience has proved the
opinions of half a century, especially the dominant thoughts of the war
years, to be tragically erroneous. What are the reasons behind this
erroneous thinking? This question must induce retrospection in the minds of
the German people. Its potentiality for life depends on whether the
strength exists for this kind of self-examination. Its future depends on
whether it can earnestly ask the following question: how did we fall into
error? If the German people asks itself this question today, it will
realize that it established an Empire half a century ago but omitted to
assign to this Empire the mission which corresponds to the inner essence of
its people.
The Empire was established. At first it
was occupied with bringing its inner life into harmony with the
requirements of tradition and the new needs which developed from year to
year. Later, efforts were directed toward consolidating and enlarging the
outward power structure, which was based on material strength. At the same
time means were employed which were directed at the social demands of the
day, in some cases appropriate to the needs, but which lacked the larger
goal which should have resulted from knowledge of the evolutionary forces
to which mankind must direct itself. Therefore, the Empire was placed in
the world without a substantial goal to justify its existence. The
war-catastrophe revealed this fact in a tragic way. Previous to the war's
outbreak, those in the non-German world could see nothing in the conduct of
the Empire's affairs which could lead them to think that its authorities
were fulfilling a historic mission that should not be swept away. The fact
that these authorities did not encounter such a mission necessarily
engendered an attitude in the non-German world which was, to one who has a
real insight, the more profound reason for the German downfall.
A very great deal depends upon the
German people's objective discernment of this fact. The insight which has
remained hidden for the past fifty years should emerge during these
calamitous times. In place of trivial thinking about immediate
requirements, a broader view of life should now appear, which strives with
powerful thinking to recognize modern humanity's evolutionary forces and is
courageously dedicated to them. The petty attempts to neutralize all those
who pay heed to these evolutionary forces must cease. The arrogance and
superciliousness of those who imagine themselves to be practical, but whose
practicality is the disguised narrow-mindedness which has in fact induced
the calamity, must cease. Attention should be paid to what those who are
decried as idealists, but who in reality are the practical ones, have to
say about the evolutionary needs of modern times.
‘Practical’ people of every persuasion
have seen the advent of new human demands for a long time. But they wanted
to deal with these demands within the framework of the old traditional
thinking and institutions. Modern economic life has produced these demands.
To satisfy them by means of private initiative seemed impossible. The
transfer of private enterprise to community enterprise in some cases
appeared necessary to a certain class of people; and this was carried out
where they thought it was useful. Radical transfer of all individual
enterprise to community enterprise was the goal of another class which was
not interested in retaining the customary private objectives in the new
economy.
All the efforts relating to the new
requirements which have been made until now have one thing in common. They
strive toward the socialization of the private sector and reckon with it
being taken over by the communities (states, municipalities), which have
developed from conditions which have nothing to do with present
requirements. Or, they reckon with newer kinds of communities
(cooperatives, for example), which are not fully in harmony with these new
requirements, having been copied from the old forms using traditional
thought-habits.
The truth is that no form of community
which corresponds to these old thought-habits can cope with such
requirements. The forces of the times are pressing for knowledge of a
social structure for humanity which is completely different from what is
commonly envisaged. Social communities hitherto have, for the most part,
been formed by human instinct. To penetrate their forces with full
consciousness is a mission of the times.
The social organism is formed like the
natural organism. As the natural organism must provide for thinking by
means of the head and not the lungs, the formation of the social organism
in systems, none of which can assume the functions of the others, although
each must cooperate with the others while always maintaining its autonomy,
is necessary.
The economy can prosper only if it
develops, as an autonomous member of the social organism, according to its
own forces and laws, and if it does not introduce confusion into its
structure by letting itself be drained by another member of the social
organism, the political one. This politically active member must function,
fully autonomous, alongside the economy, as the respiratory system
functions alongside the head system in the natural organism. Healthy
cooperation cannot be attained by means of a single legislative and
administrative organ, but by each system having its own mutually
cooperating legislature and administration. The political system, by
absorbing the economy, inevitably destroys it; and the economic system
loses its vital force when it becomes political.
A third member of the social organism,
in full autonomy and formed from its own potentialities, must be added to
these two: that of spiritual production, to which the spiritual parts of
the other two sectors, supplied to them by this third sector, belong. It
must have its own legitimate rules and administration and not be
administered or influenced by the other two, except in the sense that the
members of the natural organism mutually influence each other.
Already today one can scientifically
substantiate and develop in detail what has been said here about the social
organism's needs. In this presentation only a general indication can be
given for all those who wish to pursue them.
The German Empire was founded at a time
when these needs were converging on mankind. Its administrators did not
understand the need for setting the Empire's mission accordingly. A view to
these necessities would not only have given the Empire the correct inner
structure; it would also have lent justification to its foreign policy. The
German people could have lived together with the non-German peoples through
such a policy.
Insight should now mature from the
calamity. One should develop a will for the best possible social organism.
Not a Germany which no longer exists should face the world, but a
spiritual, a political and an economic system should propose to deal as
autonomous delegations, through their representatives, with those who
crushed that Germany which became an impossible social structure due to the
confusion of its three systems.
One can anticipate the experts who
object to the complexity of these suggestions and find it uncomfortable
even to think about three systems cooperating with each other, because they
wish to know nothing of the real requirements of life and would structure
everything according to the comfortable requirements of their thinking.
This must become clear to them: either people will accommodate their
thinking to the requirements of reality, or they will have learned nothing
from the calamity and will cause innumerable new ones to occur in the
future.
Rudolf Steiner